Iraqi President says tension with Turkey ”easing”

Published November 14th, 2007 - 13:45 GMT

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani ruled out a Turkish "invasion" of his country and said the cross-border crisis over Kurdish fighters was easing

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani ruled out a Turkish "invasion" of his country and said the cross-border crisis over Kurdish fighters was easing, in an interview published on Wednesday. "I don't think there is any danger of a Turkish invasion of (Iraqi) Kurdistan," Talabani, himself a Kurd, told Egyptian government newspaper Al-Ahram.

Turkey has massed some 100,000 soldiers on the border since its parliament last month approved a resolution allowing the government to order military strikes on Kurdish bases in Iraq. But Talabani said a meeting last week between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President George W. Bush had succeeded in "reducing the tension."